Zen and the Art of Inn Maintenance
by Mause
Summary: Motoko is maturing, and this changes things around Hinata Sou.  Enough said.  No EvilNaru or Abused Keitaro.
1. My What!

Crash!

Su's overeager arm knocked the cup from the table to the floor where it shattered, startling the other residents of the Hinata Inn who were in the middle of breakfast. Motoko quickly stuck her nose back in the book she had been reading all morning, while Keitaro immediately abandoned his breakfast and knelt on the floor picking up the shards of glass.

Broken things were a relatively common occurrence around the inn and the other residents quickly returned to their breakfasts until, as usual, Kitsune disturbed the peace with a well-timed word.

"Enjoying the view of Motoko's panties down there, Keitaro?"

Keitaro comically popped up from under the table with a bewildered and defensive look on his face and began attempting to defend himself.

"What? No! I was just-"

"Kei-ta-ro!" growled Naru, each syllable hitting like a blow to set up the right hook she sent flying at the bewildered kanrinin.

Thwack!

Rather than a supposedly perverted face, the usual deadly Narupunch struck the extended bamboo sheath of Motoko's sword, stopping it just a few inches from Keitaro's face. Naru quickly pulled back her hand and rubbed her stinging knuckles as the shocked breakfasters turned to look at Motoko, who hadn't looked up from her book.

"What the hell!" demanded Naru, temper flaring due to the throbbing in her hand. For a moment, the break in routine made a part of her realize just how absurd what she was doing was, hitting one of her friends, but she quickly refocused her anger. The rest of the residents just stared incredulously, none more shocked than the recently saved Keitaro.

Motoko hardly seemed to realize what she had done, and peeked out over the cover of her book long enough to explain calmly,

"Urashima was just cleaning up the broken glass. I have pants on, so it's not like he could see anything," she said, then returned to her book.

Naru felt the tables turning and knew she had to make a hasty retreat.

"Fine, just let him stare at your panties then, I won't protect any of you!" She yelled before storming up the stairs, her annoyance only amplified by the fact that she knew she sounded silly.

Breakfast resumed as usual, minus the redhead, with Keitaro dumping the shards of glass into the trash and Motoko picking at her vegetables between pages of the book her sister had sent her. Kitsune seemed to be the only one to notice anything unusual, as she watched the two through wary fox eyes.

After finishing his usual chores, Keitaro felt the growing need to apologize to Motoko and reaffirm the fact that he had not been looking anywhere near her undergarments.

This need brought him to her door, which he carefully approached and knocked on, wary of it somehow opening to reveal an angry half-dressed swordmaiden, as it had been known to do for various reasons.

"Come in," replied Motoko, and, tragedy averted, Keitaro opened the door and took a few steps inside, still careful to look off to the side to avoid decapitation or some other grisly fate.

"I'm dressed, you can look at me," Motoko said, setting her book down on the table in front of her pages-first.

"Errr, hahaha, of course you are, I mean, you invited me in and-" Keitaro blurted awkwardly, cutting himself off when he realized how strange he sounded. For her part Motoko just watched him unreadably, with what might have been a hint of amusement on her face or a trick of the light.

"Did you need something?" she asked, as much to save Keitaro from the awkwardness as anything.

"Um, no, well, I wanted to say I wasn't looking at your panties or anything this morning," he began, moving from awkward pauses to a nervous flow of words.

"Of course not, I was wearing pants, so-"

"I mean it's not like panties hold any interest for me anymore anyway, I've been doing the laundry here for years and," he continued, gradually picking up speed into dangerous territory at world-record pace.

"What-"

"Let me tell you, I've seen pretty much everything there is to see in the underwear department, and any male fascination I may have had with them has long been replaced by knowing I have work to do when I so much…as…lay…eyes…on…them" he trailed off, noticing Motoko's gaze focused sharply on him.

"Do you mean to tell me you know my bra size, Urashima?" she asked, trying to remain calm, but unable to prevent a hint of a blush from appearing on her cheeks.

"32D," Keitaro couldn't help but mumble, clapping his hands over his mouth immediately afterwards then hunching down for the impending blow, which never came. When he felt brave enough he glanced up to see a glowing red Motoko. Some tiny fragment of male intuition guessed it was embarrassment and not planet-destroying rage.

"Don't feel bad, I mean, that's bigger than everyone except Kitsune!" Keitaro attempted to reassure her, inadvertently revealing his encyclopedic knowledge of every female's measurements.

_Yesterday I would have hit him, _Motoko thought, sighing and leaning down against the table with her hand on her forehead. It was her own fault for shoving all her laundry on him.

Sensing he had narrowly avoided death, Keitaro began planning escape scenarios that didn't involve his dismemberment.

"Sooo, I should go. Thanks for defending me today." Never having had anyone take his side in the Hinata Inn, he wasn't exactly sure how to go about thanking someone for it.

"You were innocent. If you had been trying to look at my panties, my reaction would have been different. Goodnight Urashima." She smiled enigmatically and turned back to her book as Keitaro let himself out.

Author's Notes: So, I've found a Motoko characterization I like. I was thinking about how she would grow up and how her role models, her sister and those around the house and the people she would meet at college would influence her. I currently have a muse kick for this so expect at least a few more chapters in rapid succession.


	2. Motoko has abs!

"Motoko has a six pack!"

One by one the residents of the Hinata Inn were alerted to this fact as an excited Kaolla Su ran down the halls of the inn yelling it into a custom made megaphone.

It started like this. Motoko had always worked out in her traditional outfit for as long as she could remember, but when she started using the school gym she noticed almost all of her female classmates wore sports bras. The school gym had a lot of great modern equipment that she wanted to use, and she felt self-conscious being the only one in a hakama.

Result: One trip to the mall and she was a member of the sports bra wearing masses, albeit in a fairly modest one that looked like a winter coat compared to some of the ones the girls at school wore. It was still far behind her comfort zone of modesty while at Hinata Inn, especially with Keitaro around, so this would have all stayed at school, except Kaolla's most recent invention happened to empty six cloud's worth of inky black smoke into the laundry where her hakama was, and she had to wear her sports bra to exercise in that day.

Of course, Shinobu had to wander in while cleaning, stop to admire the older girl's figure, and then tell Kaolla about it, assuming Kaolla would be discreet about it and Motoko wouldn't really mind anyone knowing she was in great shape anyway.

And that is how Motoko wound up getting chased through the inn by the various girls, one of which assumed there was alcohol available, and the rest of whom simply followed along, until the out of breath and sweating girl was pinned in a corner by a bunch of girls who weren't quite sure why they were chasing her.

"Do you really?" asked Kitsune, who by now had clued in to the fact that there was no beer available but was still curious.

Motoko nodded shyly, strangely discomfited by the situation. She had always been shy, even in the hot springs, because the older girls had such curvy and developed figures that were soft and feminine. Sure, she had caught up or passed them in the curves department, but she still thought her muscular physique was manly and unattractive.

"Show us, show us!" Chanted Su, which was quickly taken up by the younger girls, and even Naru and Kitsune stared expectantly.

Motoko sighed, giving into the inevitable, and rolled her shirt up to just under her bra. The younger girls cheered, and Kitsune whistled approvingly, then all turned to contemplate their midsections. An extremely embarrassed Motoko took the opportunity to slink away.

Kitsune stared grumpily as she pinched her belly between her fingers. She knew about 90% of the sake she drank went to her rack, but the other 10% liked to 'misbehave', as she often complained to Naru.

"Oh well, at least I've got these," she consoled herself, groping her prodigious mammaries and giving them a bounce before wandering back to her room, now that the show was over.

Naru was thinner than Kitsune, but had developed a habit for junk food during her college days that she broke routinely for the latest fad diet. She stared grumpily at the small amount of fat on her stomach, then grumbled and walked away.

"I'm going to try to that miso soup diet."

A thoroughly embarrassed Motoko walked back towards her room to contemplate the soft, round figures of the girls on magazines and tv, and bumped into a slightly confused Keitaro, who had heard the stampede of women chasing eachother about but had no idea why.

"What was that all about?" He asked.

"Ehhhh…" she replied, struggling for the least embarrassing reply. "They wanted to see…um…my midriff."

"Oh. Wait, why? Aren't you in the hot springs together all the time?"

"Well, I try to get in first and stay in the water. I'm not…nice to look at or anything"

Keitaro reacted in the same way men have when faced with ridiculous statements from the opposite gender for thousands of years.

"Uh, what?" he asked, dumbfounded. His mind immediately began to wonder how it could fix this, like someone who wandered into a group of fourth graders confidently declaring 2 + 2 = 18.

"I'm just not smooth and feminine like Naru and Kitsune and even Shinobu now, I'm like some manly freak compared to them and the girls at school," she said, the insecurities she had been dwelling on all day rushing out all at once. She yanked her shirt up, like she had earlier, revealing her toned abs.

"What guy would be attracted to this?"

"Me!" Keitaro blurted, before he could control himself. Motoko's self-deprecating tirade came to a sudden end as they both blushed and stared at anything but each other.

"I…I see," stammered Motoko, before rushing off to her room and shutting the door firmly.

Keitaro just stared after her, wondering what had just happened.


End file.
